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Zwentendorf Nuclear Power Plant: Finished in 1978 but never used

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Re: Zwentendorf Nuclear Power Plant: Finished in 1978 but never used

#131

Post by netsharc »

onnimonni wrote: post #84
netsharc wrote: post #75

I've been noticing writing styles in stuff I read. This article, geez... Three paragraphs seem to convey the same message "they built it, the public said no, so it never got switched on". > Completed in mid-to-late 1970s, the plant in Zwentendorf cost around a billion euro to complete. This sentence begins and ends with basically the same word. Feels like a highschooler level writing...

There's an edit button in the linked page. It's better to contribute than to complain. They both take roughly same amount of time and other option leaves things better than you found them ;)

That's news to me. Wink.

Re: Zwentendorf Nuclear Power Plant: Finished in 1978 but never used

#132

Post by moogly »

chickenbig wrote: post #126
onnimonni wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Finland where I'm from the Olkiluoto III nuclear plant was delayed multiple times and ended up being 9th most expensive building in the world (excluding military bases which we don't have public records): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_build... I'm highly skeptical of the schedules and since it's so old equipment I would be very surprised if it will be in budget and start when scheduled. An…

It is a good job the station's Finnish owner/operator, TVO, got it on a fixed price contract. That does not make coping with the delays in coming online any easier, but some consolation that someone else is footing the construction bill and enriching the local economy. This is, to some extent, the same as Hinkley Point C where EDF and CGN have got a long term strike price. I wait with interest to see how Sizewell C w…

> someone else

Indeed. That would be French taxpayers.

Re: Zwentendorf Nuclear Power Plant: Finished in 1978 but never used

#133

Post by scotty79 »

hi-v-rocknroll wrote: post #116
scotty79 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get your analogy and I don't care about nuclear specifically. There were many examples where dams weren't built to protect local ecosystems. Pumped storage denied. Roads not build that could shorten the travel. Ethanol in fuel that actually emitted more CO2 because of land use change to satisfy the enforced demand. Multi-use bags that require so much energy and resources to build that you need to use them tho…

The thinking that climate change / CO2 is any different from CFCs is the primary barrier in the way of meaningful action. It takes persistent leadership on an international basis to get people of the world to do things differently, overcome greed, ignorance, and resistance, and stop the Holocene from ending with mass starvation, mass migration, and tens of billions of unnecessary deaths.

It's easier to get all countries to ban one class of refrigerants than all fuels.

We were super lucky in the case of ozone layer.

Re: Zwentendorf Nuclear Power Plant: Finished in 1978 but never used

#134

Post by kriops »

hi-v-rocknroll wrote: post #128
chickenbig wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no point bothering with an inherently riskier and more expensive technology when cleaner, safer, and cheaper alternatives exist. Not sure how to simultaneously maximise the three metrics. How many tonnes of CO2 is equal to one life or 1M USD? https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/impacts-of-energy-sourc... https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p... https://worldpopulationreview.com/count…

The tipping point for solar and wind being cheaper (LCOE) and cleaner to deploy and maintain rapidly overtook all other forms of energy (coal, gas, nuclear, and hydro) in more and more markets over time thanks to the economies-of-scale of more deployments and improved manufacturing processes. There are some markets where coal or gas is the cheaper and expedient solution for now where local LCOEs are different, but no…

How about the cost in wild-life and nature? The required area and kill count of enough wind mills to replace a single nuclear plant is absolute insanity. And idk where you live, but we just had a university leader here who had to go because the wind lobby paid her scientists off to falsify reports in favour of wind. Wind and solar have their places sure, but the future is nuclear.

Re: Zwentendorf Nuclear Power Plant: Finished in 1978 but never used

#135

Post by credit_guy »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #31

The one that really breaks my heart is the SNR-300, a cutting-edge liquid metal sodium-cooled breeder reactor capable of unlocking the full potential of the majority isotope (U-238) rather than just the minority (U-235), giving us literally billions of years of current-day whole-earth power from known uranium resources (including seawater and erosion). It was 100% completed and ready to come up to power, but then Che…

> giving us literally billions of years of current-day whole-earth power from known uranium resources (including seawater and erosion)

It's not like it was a one-time chance that we missed, and we'll never get back. The technology still exists, it is even in production. Russia has 2 reactors running as of now, BN-600 and BN-800. The first has been running for more than 4 decades, the other for 8 years. A BN-1200 design has been recently approved for construction, and Russia plans to make many of them.

In the US, there's the Terrapower company that has started the approval process with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for its sodium-cooled reactor, Natrium [2]. These things take years, but my guess is that in the worst case scenario, they'll still be able to build a reactor by 2040.

[1] https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/BN-1200-plans-for-Be...

[2] https://www.terrapower.com/terrapower-submits-cpa-nrc/

Re: Zwentendorf Nuclear Power Plant: Finished in 1978 but never used

#136

Post by frankharv »

hi-v-rocknroll wrote: post #128
chickenbig wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no point bothering with an inherently riskier and more expensive technology when cleaner, safer, and cheaper alternatives exist. Not sure how to simultaneously maximise the three metrics. How many tonnes of CO2 is equal to one life or 1M USD? https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/impacts-of-energy-sourc... https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p... https://worldpopulationreview.com/count…

The tipping point for solar and wind being cheaper (LCOE) and cleaner to deploy and maintain rapidly overtook all other forms of energy (coal, gas, nuclear, and hydro) in more and more markets over time thanks to the economies-of-scale of more deployments and improved manufacturing processes. There are some markets where coal or gas is the cheaper and expedient solution for now where local LCOEs are different, but no…

How nasty is producing Solar Panels? Have you looked at the etchants used?

I don't think we have a full account of the cost of the chemicals involved in semi-conductor construction.

I know its an inconvenient fact....

We all want to hate nuclear power but have no good storage plans for these new variable green power sources.

Nuclear may take a long time to spin up but it is constant and reliable.

Electrify the economy they say....

They forget wind and solar are part time producers.

Re: Zwentendorf Nuclear Power Plant: Finished in 1978 but never used

#137

Post by someguydave »

sofixa wrote: post #130
guenthert wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When? I think the timeline matters here. While the effect of CO2 emission on global warming are known (to some extent) for more than a century already, in the eighties and early nineties, it was not a chief concern of the general populace in Europe, while the (perceived or actual) dangers of nuclear energy certainly was.

I went to primary school (1-4 grade) in the mid 1990s in a small post-communist country. Fossil fuel burning producing emissions bad for your health and harming the planet was something that was a part of the curriculum in like the second or third grade (I remember it vividly because the teacher asked why are trolleybuses better than bused, I was sure it was something to do with the engine, but didn't want to risk em…

If you cannot think for yourself then often someone else will think for you…

Re: Zwentendorf Nuclear Power Plant: Finished in 1978 but never used

#138

Post by someguydave »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #89
someguydave wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That plus well developed civilian nuclear power gives the means to developing atomic bombs, and Russia has every reason to fear a nuclear-armed Germany

I doubt that this was a major concern as US nuclear weapons have been stationed in Germany since 1960. They remain under US control but the German army is trained to use them in the event of a war. And of course Soviet nuclear weapons used to be stationed in East Germany during the cold war. So for practical purposes Germany was already nuclear-armed. But who knows. This was 15 years after the end of WW2. It wouldn't…

Even aside from WW2 history just simply having more potential threats is bad.

Re: Zwentendorf Nuclear Power Plant: Finished in 1978 but never used

#139

Post by Krasnol »

pyrale wrote: post #44
Krasnol wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is how countries with nuclear energy still doing it: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-023-01228-5 https://cepa.org/article/russias-civil-nuclear-threat-must-b...

Not really European countries, no. Quote from your article: > With the exception of Hungary, which has recently signed an agreement with Rosatom for the expansion of its Paks nuclear power plant, European countries have been seeking to diversify away from the company since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

> Not really European countries, no.

Is nuclear energy a European energy source, or how is this comment related?

Re: Zwentendorf Nuclear Power Plant: Finished in 1978 but never used

#140

Post by zaik »

acidburnNSA wrote: post #31

The one that really breaks my heart is the SNR-300, a cutting-edge liquid metal sodium-cooled breeder reactor capable of unlocking the full potential of the majority isotope (U-238) rather than just the minority (U-235), giving us literally billions of years of current-day whole-earth power from known uranium resources (including seawater and erosion). It was 100% completed and ready to come up to power, but then Che…

> people (of Germany) revolted

Austria.

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